In the past decade, the number of employees working from home has increased by 373,000 – a 27% rise. There are many benefits of working away from the office, including fewer distractions, increased productivity, cutting out the commute and juggling work with caring responsibilities.
Getting the best from your home-working employee population relies on taking the right management approach. We share our insights into the reasons for and challenges created by this major trend plus our top tips to help you manage your remote workforce even more effectively and ensure they feel included.
The Home Working Megatrend – Big Reasons for a Big Change
Remote working is a major trend for organisations. Usually part of an enterprise’s flexible working policy, it’s aimed at empowering employees to work from locations other than the office. This can include working from home, customer offices or other locations.
The change is underpinned by some major cultural, business and technological shifts:
- We’re in the age of the ‘knowledge worker’ – it’s not necessary for everyone to go to work to do their work.
- Globalisation and multinationals mean firms are working with a globally diverse population so colleagues may not be in the same country let alone city or office.
- Technology has advanced to such a degree it’s no longer necessary to be in the same room to work side by side – cloud computing, messaging apps, mobile technology and widely available wifi make it easy to collaborate at a distance.
- Staff want flexible working options and seek a better work-life balance – this can be achieved by reducing the time spent commuting.
- To remain competitive and access wider talent pools, organisations want to provide alternative working options.
- Reducing the number of employee work spaces saves money. One study from Stanford found that a Chinese organisation saved $2,000 per employee on rent alone having introduced remote working.
- Many organisations want to reduce their carbon footprint as part of their corporate social responsibility strategy. Reducing the need for travel is a great way to do this.
- As housing costs increase, increasing numbers of workers are choosing to live in more affordable locations. Remote working enables them to pursue their chosen career while living within their means.
- A rapid rise in self employment – from 3.3m people in 2001 (12% of the UK labour force) to 4.8m in 2017 (15.1% of the workforce) – correlates with more people working from home.
In the UK, 4.2m people work remotely, with 1.54m working from home for their main job and 2.66m working from different locations but with their home as their main base.
This trend is increasing each year to the extent that 50% of the UKs workforce is predicted to work remotely by 2020.
Traditionally the view that home working was for roles such as sole traders and freelancers, however there’s a change in who’s working from home. Research by ONS in 2014 found that roles are typically involved in agriculture, information and communication or construction with a third of home workers classed as professionals and a further 14.8% at management level.
Despite these significant shifts towards remote working, the TUC found that there’s still scope for more people to work away from the office. That’s because an additional 4m people want to work remotely from time to time. So why the reluctance to extend remote working further?
The Verdict on Remote Working
The major issue when it comes to allowing employees to work away from the office is trust. Some business leaders are still concerned that, unwatched, their employees’ productivity will suffer. However, in general, the evidence indicates that people who work from home are much more productive, as we’ll explore in a few moments.
Despite employees’ appetites for remote working, it’s all not all picture perfect. According to the Harvard Business Review, in a survey of 1,153 remote workers, 52% felt they were not treated equally, with reports of feeling left out, not being included in projects and not being supported.
On a more positive note, remote workers find that productivity and morale improves and that happiness, motivation and a sense of freedom are generally stronger among remote workers, increasing output.
In another study by Stanford professor Nicholas Bloom, an organisation allowed 250 staff to work from home while 250 employees worked from the office. The results showed that the home workers:
- worked a true full shift as they were never late into the office
- found it less distracting and easier to concentrate
- took shorter breaks, had fewer sick days and took less time off
- were an entire day more productive than the office-based workers
- were more likely to stay with the company as attrition reduced by 50%
However, despite all these benefits, half the group decided they didn’t want to work from home 100% of the time as they found it too lonely. Showing that different people have different experiences of remote working. And that effective remote working requires a balance of virtual and in-person contact time.
At CMCBP our work with organisations and coachees supports this view with many people telling us that they find working from home lonely.
With so much conflicting evidence out there, it’s important to note that one size won’t fit all when it comes to remote working. For every person who finds home working productive and an engagement factor for their job another will prefer at least some degree of contact with other people.
If remote working is something you’d like to introduce to your organisation – or if you already have but it’s not quite working as well as you’d like – follow the top tips for managing virtual workers in the next section of this article.
Ways to Manage Remote Workers
There’s a lot to think about when empowering employees to work away from the office. Here are some questions to ask yourself as an employer so you can set up and support your remote team members effectively:
- Policy – are staff clear about protocol and etiquette as a virtual worker? Your remote working policy should include the standards you expect and information about what a home office setup might look like.
- Performance – how is performance measured? Be clear on the outputs you expect people to achieve in a day. This means you won’t need to worry about inputs (where the virtual worker is, what they are doing or how they are achieving the outputs) as long as they generate the results you expect.
- Communicate – are you confident about managing virtual workers? Start conversations about virtual working with your team and introduce new software systems to aid communication between virtual and non-virtual workers.
- Fairness – is there clarity over who can work virtually and when? Make sure employees do not feel disadvantaged if some are allowed to work virtually and others are not.
- Motivation – how can you maintain the motivation of someone who isn’t present? By knowing your staff well enough to decide whether working virtually would suit them and how much motivation they might need, you’ll be able to provide the right level and kind of support.
- Practicalities – agree in advance who is working at home and when and decide on days that working in the office is required. This could be when important team meetings take place or if you want to kick off a new project or deliver important feedback.
- Development – are there any training or performance issues? Productivity and worker satisfaction should be high at all times therefore training and support may be regularly required.
- Contract – what do your contracts say? You might need to amend information on location, expenses, data protection requirements, hours of work and confidentiality. Any changes should be negotiated and documented.
- Systems – is IT or connectivity going to be an issue? Depending on your current setup, you might need to improve internet connectivity and provide the right hardware and software to enable remote working.
Adapted from https://www.jaluch.co.uk/hr-blast/managing-the-virtual-workers/
How to Make Virtual Workers Feel Included
With loneliness and isolation a major factor for those who work remotely, including virtual colleagues in your team is key to a great outcome for your people and business. Here are our suggestions to ensure your remote colleagues feel included:
- Connect via video – 87% of workers feel work is more transparent and that they’re more connected to their peers if video calling is available. Also schedule the video calls at a convenient time for everyone, or rotate the times so that virtual workers are not always at a disadvantage. It will also open the door for you to engage in remote interviews.
- Introduce messaging apps – use instant messaging apps to encourage both business and non-business related chats among workers. Like being in the office, chat apps give your people time to talk and bond which is an excellent way to boost the efficacy of future collaboration efforts.
- Embrace and encourage diversity – learning how to deal with and manage remote employees will make your culture more whole.
The CMCBP View
As a small business, we’ve embraced virtual working at CMC Business Psychology. As our resident business psychologist, Clare is often out and about and needs to have a flexible approach to communications and research.
When not travelling, Clare appreciates the option to work from her home office or a local co-working space which enables connections with local business and professional people. As well as a professional location for client meetings and coaching sessions.
Siobhan works as a researcher and provides project support from a different city. To communicate we rely on technology in between the times we communicate face-to-face. Although there are many technology solutions out there, we rely on:
- Google Drive – all company information is available in the cloud when needed. Any documents that are changed update immediately in our shared drive so we can access the latest version whenever and wherever we are. Google Drive also means we can share research documents, edit and comment to share our work.
- Google Docs – enables us to collaborate on documents and share changes without emailing back and forth
- Google Hangouts – for chat and video conversations
- A collaborative calendar so we can view each team member’s schedule and see everyone’s availability
- Google Mail – accessible from any device, we label and file emails so we can easily find information quickly and efficiently
Virtual workers are a growing population that needs to be treated differently to their office-based peers. There are lots of benefits of allowing people to work remotely but to get the most from your virtual team you need to ensure you provide the right hardware, software, emotional and managerial support. Get it right and you and your remote colleagues will reap the rewards.
For support integrating your remote workers with your office-based team, contact Clare on 07594 946166 or at [email protected].
